Inside Scoop: Inside Scoop: Gearing up for CES 2013

Inside Scoop: Inside Scoop: Gearing up for CES 2013

4:07 /
January 2, 2013

In just a few days, scores of CNET editors will be traveling to Las Vegas to cover the latest and greatest gadgets at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. In this Inside Scoop, CNET's Kara Tsuboi and Donald Bell discuss the hot products they expect to see, what will be missing this year, and how to mentally prepare for a show of this magnitude.

-Hi everyone and welcome to the Inside Scoop.
I'm CNET's Kara Tsuboi, joined by Senior Editor Donald Bell.
And Donald, we are talking all things CES-
-Uh-huh.
-2013.
That's the Consumer Electronics Show, happens every year in Las Vegas in roughly the 2nd week of January.
So, just a few days away from heading down to the big show-
-Right.
-What are some of your thoughts for this year?
What are we going to see as far as products go?
-One thing that's always a staple at CES is TVs.
-Uh-huh.
-It's half of- half of it always
seems to be big name announcements for televisions and also some new technologies that have been kind of in the paper for a while now.
They're falling down into, you know, consumer level televisions.
So, we're looking at 4K TVs which is double the resolution of our highest resolution 1080p TVs right now.
-Wow.
-And OLED TVs which have been in the process for a while but we've seen smaller screen sizes.
They're very expensive.
Hopefully, now, we're gonna be hitting that equilibrium of screen sizes and price to make them
more attractive to consumers.
-I remember a couple years ago, the rage was 3D TVs.
-Uh-huh.
-It looks like that fad has passed or onto a new trend.
-Yeah, that's kind of like people take that as a given now in any TV they're gonna buy.
-I heard that one of the things editors are keeping an eye out for is streaming and connectivity and products like Roku and other competitors.
-Right.
There's that continued push to make the living room all the more wireless.
Especially now, that Apple has pulled their connection port to their phones and their tablet.
There's this push to have like airplay
speaker systems, Bluetooth speaker systems.
People are now, whether they like it or not, having to embrace more wireless technologies in the living room including things like Roku for streaming video to their TVs, but even on that front of like wireless charging for their phones or wireless speaker systems for their home theater.
-What about hand-held devices in the form of Smartphones or tablets.
Do you think we'll see a lot of invasion in the hardware space there?
-Some release for the past 2, CES has definitely been a place where we've seen a lot of new Android tablets.
-Uh-huh.
-And I think that's still gonna continue here because we've seen some successful footholds in the tablet market for Android devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. So, we're gonna see, probably, even more Android tablets from viewing the CES.
But as far as phones go, we have Mobile World Congress coming up in a month after CES.
-Sure.
-I think a lot of the manufacturers gonna see their big name announcements for that-
-Uh-huh.
-Expo.
And then, we'll see some phone here but nothing that's gonna really
make a lot of headlines except maybe some fireproof, waterproof phones, things like that, whatever.
Always seemed to trickle out their fond of demo-
-The French phones.
-But not really the things that people get excited about.
-And speaking of companies sort of wanting to release products on their own schedule, we learned last year that Microsoft would no longer be participating in CES.
-Yeah.
-What kind of impact will that have on the show this year?
-Well, it takes a big brand name off of the show floor-
-Yeah.
-But that also leaves space for other people to come in and take it over.
So,
there is a vacuum there, but I'm sure it's gonna be fooled by a lot of other manufacturers.
This also makes sense for Microsoft in a way because they just came out with the big push for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8. So, they've already kind of shown off everything that they have for this year.
-True.
-So, there's not a lot for them to show at CES.
-I've, now- this will be my 4th CES.
How many have you gone to?
-This will be, I think, 4 or 5, yeah.
-Is there anything that you could share with our viewers that you're doing to prepare right now-
-Yeah.
-Before you head down?
-Just exhaustion, preparation, just taking my vitamins, taking care of
myself, you know.
But yeah, it's rough because you're on your feet all day.
It's high stress.
You're, you know, the bloggers and writers are bringing extra like My 5 to keep connected to the internet and the different press conferences.
-Yeah.
-It's a lot to go through.
-Yeah, just waiting through the crowd [unk] the time.
-You bring in extra socks, comfy shoes.
-Yeah.
-It's a lot of walking.
-Yeah.
-But, yeah.
-Definitely.
-That's all.
There's no real preparation you could do except to get a lot of rest.
-Absolutely.
Well, we look forward to seeing you, Don, there.
-Yeah.
-Thank you so much,
Donald Bell.
I'm Kara Tsuboi.
Thanks for watching the Inside Scoop.